Sometimes when I see the news reporting an athlete being offered exuberant amounts of money makes me wonder what the book industry would be like if we could get millions of people every week to go out and spend 20 dollars on a book instead of a football game.
I am not saying football players earn more than what they are worth, as an athlete myself I understand the rigors and hard work they have put in. They are not meatheads told to kick balls in between posts. It takes an instinct for decision making, athletic prowess and strategic knowledge to be a successful football player.
To be a successful writer requires the same kind of skills, besides the athletic prowess. Football players are paid what the market can handle. If millions of people are turning up and paying all that money to watch them play, if the players are the ones drawing the crowds in they should receive a fair share of the profits. If you sold a work of fiction that sold a million copies, wouldn't it be fair to expect a cut of profit from the publisher in the form of royalties?
What we as writers need to do is form a full contact version of writing. Maybe have authors read their works against each other, in a battle with fireworks and light shows, in an arena with beautiful women holding up cards with the page numbers on them.
This is obviously an unrealistic expectation. Football is a national culture in this country, books don't draw in the same kind of crowd. While we wait for this to happen though, I am here at my desk writing a novel a medium amount of people will enjoy, maybe one day the GWS Giants or the Sydney Swans will offer me 12 million dollars to write a novel, until then, back to the keyboard I go.
I am not saying football players earn more than what they are worth, as an athlete myself I understand the rigors and hard work they have put in. They are not meatheads told to kick balls in between posts. It takes an instinct for decision making, athletic prowess and strategic knowledge to be a successful football player.
To be a successful writer requires the same kind of skills, besides the athletic prowess. Football players are paid what the market can handle. If millions of people are turning up and paying all that money to watch them play, if the players are the ones drawing the crowds in they should receive a fair share of the profits. If you sold a work of fiction that sold a million copies, wouldn't it be fair to expect a cut of profit from the publisher in the form of royalties?
What we as writers need to do is form a full contact version of writing. Maybe have authors read their works against each other, in a battle with fireworks and light shows, in an arena with beautiful women holding up cards with the page numbers on them.
This is obviously an unrealistic expectation. Football is a national culture in this country, books don't draw in the same kind of crowd. While we wait for this to happen though, I am here at my desk writing a novel a medium amount of people will enjoy, maybe one day the GWS Giants or the Sydney Swans will offer me 12 million dollars to write a novel, until then, back to the keyboard I go.
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